Triple Treat

Last week was incredibly productive for me. I don't know what I did right, but I got a ton of beading done!















I call this trio my "Triple Treat" - three designs, all using the same basic pattern. The green necklace I finished a couple of weeks ago, inspired by that awesome pendant by Lisa Peters Art. I decided to make a version of the necklace without a focal pendant that works great as just a nice, flat neckpiece with lots and lots of sparkle.

And then I decided to make a more cost-effective version using Czech fire-polished beads. The bracelet came out a little longer than I wanted it to be, so I'm still tweaking the sizes of beads to get it to come out the right length, but it stitched up super-quick in just over an hour.

So now I can move on to my next set of projects! I've got an incredible design all sketched out for a netted Renaissance Collar using tiny 3mm Swarovski bicones and top-drilled round pearls - it wouldn't look out of place on a queen. And then I had this strange idea for a wagon-wheel pendant with glass flowers and bamboo tubes. Sounds strange, but I think it might work up to be pretty cool in a Mae West kinda way.

This coming week is going to be nuts. I've got to finish uploading all the videos I shot for About.com and send off all the scripts, and try to get all these patterns I've been designing uploaded. I should have done more today, but I just couldn't get my act together, and the exhaustion today is just totally overwhelming. I haven't been able to get to Starbucks, my "office", since I found out I was pregnant last week, but I think I'm going to set aside two nights this week to get over there.

Vintage Inspired

I found this among the pieces of my mother's jewelry that were given to me last fall after we scattered her ashes in Texas.















I don't know anything about it, like where she may have gotten it, or when it was made, but I'm guessing from the materials and the design that it may have been made sometime in the 1940s or 1950s.

The peachy-colored baubles stuck in my head for weeks, while I tried to figure out a way to re-create them. Then when I saw the new Swarovski crystal pearls in that gorgeous coral color, I knew I wanted to use them to try to recreate the piece. A piece of copper chain and a funky square-shaped copper toggle from Artbeads was all I needed to complete the piece:















Trying to make these beaded beads was definitely a challenge for me. I used tubular right angle weave, which is one of my least favorite stitches, and went through many, many variations of the pattern. The first time I actually had one beaded bead stitched up perfectly, I realized that I hadn't taken any notes on what I did, so I had to tear the thing apart to see where my thread path went so I could re-create it! Note to self: always take notes.

It's really a cool little piece. I love the way the beaded beads jingle against the chain when I wear it. This is one that I think I will be submitting to a magazine or using as a class, if I can ever get my teaching schedule organized.

The last two days, I'm really starting to feel like I'm pregnant, although I have yet to be hit with the nausea that I had when I was pregnant with Colden. There are still times when I feel like I'm totally in denial about the pregnancy thing because I actually feel pretty good most days, if not a little emotional. The thing that's been the hardest so far is the exhaustion - and having to haul myself out of bed once, twice or three times a night to take care of Colden. Yesterday afternoon, I walked down the hill to the garage to pick up the car after we had it inspected, and today, I feel like I can barely move.

But if this is how I'm going to feel for this pregnancy, I'll take it over the constant nausea any day!

Nap Time

It's days like this that I relish nap time, when Colden lays down and has his milk and I read him a story, then he snuggles up with his blanket and his favorite stuffed animal of the day, and I get a little bit of a breather. In the winter, it means curling up on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate and Moose; in the summer, it means curling up in my own bed or on the back porch with my laptop or my beads. Sometimes, it means crashing in bed for a much-needed nap after a long night of constant awakenings.

I'm going to start needing nap time even more, since last week, I found out that I am pregnant with our second child! Tom and I had talked about having another baby, and how nice it would be for Colden to have a sibling. But for a while, we thought it probably wasn't going to happen. What a nice surprise last weekend!

Of course, we've timed it all wrong again - my due date this time (until I'm told otherwise by the dating ultrasound in two weeks) is January 28. Another winter baby! Another terrified Tom, worried about having to get up to Plattsburgh in the snow and ice in case there's a storm.

And because I'm over 35, at my first appointment with the midwife last week, she absolutely put the fear of God into me over things like Down's Syndrome and Trisomy 18, and we get to go to Burlington to have a special ultrasound called an Ultrascreen to detect any abnormalities. But I've decided that I'm not going to worry about anything until someone tells me to worry - when Colden was still in utero, one of the ultrasounds detected a small cyst on the part of his brain that makes the spinal fluid. By the time of the re-check, however, the cyst had completely resolved itself and disappeared, and he's been a happy, healthy baby (and now a happy, healthy little boy!) ever since.

And since Colden has been asleep for forty five minutes now, I need to get busy and get some writing done so I can make a decent dinner tonight and then maybe try to get to bed at a decent hour!

My Bead Soup Swap Package Arrived!

My swap partner is Ann Rishell, a bead artist and architect from Arizona. She sent me an absolutely incredible package of seed beads, pearls, Swarovski crystals, silver components and an incredible Venetian glass bead and clasp!















I completely forgot to take a picture of the beads I sent to Ann, but you can see them if you take a look at her blog, My Critical Eye.

This is all part of the Bead Soup Blog Party, created by jewelry artist Lori Anderson. So now I have until June 19th to get going and create something with all these lovelies! And wouldn't ya know it, Ann just happened to pick some of my favorite colors for me to work with. This is going to be so much fun!

Reset Button

So, I'm not going into the details here, but last night, someone shot me down with something really negative, right in my face. It made me cry for most of the night, and it's left me feeling close to tears all morning. I think usually it wouldn't have bothered me so much, because I can usually let stuff like that go, but this was kind of a last straw type of deal. It just reminded me too much of the nonsense and hostility that went on when I had my shop a few years ago, and I think that's why it hurt me so badly.

We also found out last night that our friends have to have their wonderful, sweet, 14-year-old Labrador put down today. We've grown very fond of her these last few years, and it's not going to be easy to say good-bye.

It's not going to be an easy day.

Instead of continuing to push myself with the last few videos, I'm taking a day off today, taking Colden to Target to get some diapers and Play Doh, and then if it's not raining, we're going to go to the playground later today.

I'm just done with the bad stuff today, and I need to get it out.

I'm going into Lake Placid to write tonight, but before I do, I'm going to take a nice walk around Mirror Lake. I haven't done that in a long time, and I think it might be a good way to clear my head.

The one thing that made me laugh this morning was sitting on Colden's bed with him while we ate breakfast. We were watching Baby Wordsworth (one of the Baby Einstein DVDs that he love so much), and Colden was doing all the signs and saying all the words, some of which I had never heard him say before this morning! And I love hearing him say "avocado", or at least, trying to say "avocado". And whenever I take the milk jug out of the refrigerator, he points to the cow on the label and lets out a big, "Moooooooo!"

Whatever else I might do, whatever mistakes I make in life, I will always strive to be a good mother to my son.

Love and Hate

I spent the morning finishing up the latest incarnation of the Swarovski crystal overload necklace that I worked on over the weekend, only to find that I was short four Simplicity crystals in the right color. Okay, so it's an excuse to order some more beads from Artbeads or wherever I could find the crystals, right?

The I spent the rest of the morning working on a variation of said Swarovski crystal overload necklace that was actually a bracelet with Czech fire polished beads and rondelles. At first, I thought I loved it. Then, as the day wore on, I hated it. Now, I'm somewhere in the middle with it, but my brain is too tired to figure it out. So I'm gonna let it sit alongside the other two pieces until I've had a few decent hours of sleep.

We had another rough night with Colden last night. I finally got to lie down for bed around 10:30, and sure enough, just as I was falling asleep, Colden was awake and in our room. Instead of going back to sleep like he did the previous night, he tossed and turned and kicked and grabbed my hair and yanked. It did not make for anything like a restful evening.

Then after we got back from the grocery store this afternoon, I let him sit in front of the chicken run and throw grass in to the big laying hens that were running around in the sun. When I looked up, I saw what I thought was the fully-feathered wing of one of the big white laying hens sitting in a hole in the ground. When I looked closer, I saw feet, and then realized that it was actually the dead chicken body of the little Polish Crested that we got with our last batch of baby chicks. The bigger chickens had been pecking at her the last couple of weeks, and I guess today when she got brave enough to jump down from the brooding area, they chased her outside and finished her off. Very sad, but very gross: because the only way in and out of the chicken run (for now) is through the chicken door in the coop, I had to cut a hole in the run with the wire cutters and wait for Tom's dad to come over with a rake so I could lift the body out of the run. Ew. Poor thing... It didn't look as if the any of the other babies had been pecked at by the older hens, so we're going to wait and see what happens. If any of the other babies start to look beat up, those older hens are going in the freezer.

And I haven't been to the gym in nearly two weeks. I'm starting to feel a bit soft around the middle again. I have to get back on that...

Lights, Camera, Action!

So, this is Week 2 of shooting videos for the About.com website, and I have to admit, I'm having fun. It has been so cool coming up with the ideas for the videos, and writing the scripts and then actually using the video camera! I think the only thing that I am NOT going to enjoy (from my test runs the first day I had the camera) are the shots where I am on-screen. I'm not terribly photogenic, even on a good day, and when I watched the videos on the computer, I was shocked to see how often I blinked. I think I'll have to stick my eyelids open with double sided tape while I say my on-screen lines.















These are some of the samples from the first four videos that I have shot and finished: basic bead embroidered backstitch, St. Petersburg Chain, Cellini spiral, and African Helix. I had numerous requests for cubic right angle weave, which I would love to show in a video, but alas, these videos can only be three and a half minutes long at best, so I don't think I can do a tutorial for cubic right angle weave in under four minutes.

When I was reviewing some of the video I shot last week today, I realized that in the background, you can hear the (rather loud) trickle of water from the fish tank in the dining room! Yikes! I contacted the video editor to see what I should do about that, but before she got back to me, I decided I would just re-shoot the video clips where you could hear it so that I wouldn't have any problems when they start editing the clips for me. I re-shot the video with the filters turned off. Then I had to re-shoot some of those clips with the front door and the windows closed so that you couldn't hear the cars speeding up and down the road in front of the house. I need a padded cell, I think...

I've also been watching beading video tutorials online wherever I can find them. They're all like 5 to 10 minutes long, or longer! I hope I can squeeze all the important information into three minutes. And of course, I'll have written tutorials for these things on the site, too.

Meanwhile, the opening day of the Keene Valley farmers' market is drawing closer, and I have a million things to get - business cards, packaging, a new tablecloth, and I think I'm going to need an extra table, since I'm currently using one of my tables as my "desk" for shooting photos. I think it's going to be a less intensive market season for me this year. I'm not sure how good sales will be, considering the state of the economy here in the U.S. and around the world. I think I'm going to focus more on listing items in my Etsy shop, and when I do the farmers' markets and craft shows, I'll just have my higher-end bead embroidered and bead woven pieces and kits for sale. Maybe a few pieces of glass jewelry, but I've got an entire box of glass jewelry inventory sitting around with pieces that I've had for the last year, and it's not doing anything for me just sitting there and collecting dust. Maybe tomorrow afternoon I'll take a bunch of photos while Colden takes his nap...

It Don't Mean a Thing...

If it ain't got the bling!

I know, it's corny, but that's what I decided to call this piece, for now.















It started with this gorgeous focal pendant from Lisa Peters Art. I had no idea what to do with it, I only knew that I wanted to keep it for myself. Or so I thought.

I sat down with the big bag of leftover 4mm Swarovski bicones that I bought about a million years ago with the intention of using them in beading kits and started to make a strap out of right angle weave. I didn't like the way the strap looked with the pendant - it was too angular compared to the soft lines of the pendant. Then I accidentally picked up two sets of beads and stitched them together - wa-haa! It made something like a circle! And then I added a 4.5mm Swarovski "Simplicity" bead in the middle - and it looked even more like a circle!

I wanted to jump around and say, "Who's your daddy?" but I held back. After all, Colden was asleep.

I actually thought about naming the piece "Who's Your Daddy?" but figured it wouldn't work very well in magazines or on websites. Not with my target market, anyway.

But then this morning, I figured out how to add the pendant and stitched on the clasp, and it came out better than I thought. But now I have problems.

1. Should I keep the original piece or sell it?
2. Should I offer the design/pattern to Beadwork/Bead and Button magazine first or just publish it on About.com?
3. And now I want to make a plain version without a focal pendant, and I have just barely enough Simplicities in the right color and size.

I have really never thought of myself as a crystal-kinda-person. Truth be told, most days, I don't wear much jewelry because I find that it has been getting in the way of doing the dishes, taking care of the chickens, and it gives Colden one more thing to yank on when I pick him up. (He hasn't torn an earlobe yet, but I'm just waiting for it to happen.)

I am going to embark on the plain version later today, I think. The first version stitched up much, much faster than I thought it would, so I think the plain version will be quick, too.

And on that note, I think my glass fusing students are here, so off to the kiln for a little while!

Well. Farmers' Market Season is Here Again.

And I think that this year, I am going to have to seriously cut back on the number of markets and craft shows that I do. With the work I'm doing for About.com and trying to make new pieces and design projects for the magazines and the website, I don't think I'll be able to haul my show around upstate New York (and beyond) three times a week. So in the coming days and weeks, I'll be shooting new photographs of my work and probably opening a de-stash shop on Etsy to see if I can't move some of this old inventory so that I can make new inventory and concentrate on my high end line of beaded and bead embroidered jewelry.

I don't have a lot of time to blog today, since I have to go blog for About.com (I want to get all the rest of my posts done for the rest of the week!) and I have to keep plugging away on the videos I'm shooting. Shooting videos is hard. I'm starting to remember some stuff from my t.v. production and film making classes back in high school, but just when I think I have the line in my head, I stumble over a word.

I've set up my dining room for video production for the next few days. Here is what it looks like.
















I really hope the weather gets nice soon so that we can at least eat on the back porch. The dining room table is underneath all that stuff!

Birthday Blogging

So, today I'm 36. I feel like I'm on the wrong side of 30! But, like Dad always says, "It beats the alternative." On a more thoughtful note, to quote a song by singer/songwriter Ann Reed, "This looking back is a gift of age."

Yesterday afternoon at the post office, there was a huge, big ol' box waiting for me from Beki and the nice people at Whimbeads. I went a little nuts when she posted their new colors of size 11 seed beads and the new size 8 Toho hybrids.














Aren't these colors gorgeous?! C'mon, you know they are... I have a fondness for the metallic seed beads. I use them when I'm making beaded chains and cabochon pendants because I love the way they look.















I've also got a thing for the new Toho hybrids. The colors are just fantastic, and they work so well with so many things!















I've got plans for these babies. That gorgeous emerald Swarovski bicone and the bright permanent finish gold metallic seed beads are going to become a re-creation of a piece of estate jewelry I found in an online auction catalog.















I was really psyched when Beki told me that they actually had the 4mm Swarovski crystal pearls that I had been looking for everywhere! I got some of these for a project from another source, and of course, underestimated the amount that I needed. I kept trying to get them, but they were out of stock EVERYWHERE.




















And while this is just on loan to me, this cool little pocket video camera is what I am going to start filming with today! A couple of weeks ago, one of the senior video editors at the About.com site contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in borrowing a little pocket camera for a few weeks to shoot some video tutorials for the site. I've got fifteen videos scripted. I probably won't get the chance to shoot all of them, but when I looked up this little gadget online, I found that I can get a new one for about $150, so that might be in my future.

No shortage of things to do today, so I have to get off the computer, get some breakfast for me and the kiddo, and get moving!

Mother's Day

Well, I can honestly say that this has been a less than perfect Mother's Day for me, except for the part where I got to eat chocolate while I was writing video scripts this afternoon. That was good.

But this whole weekend, I was sick as a dog with whatever upper respiratory crud knocked Tom out last weekend. (Colden had it earlier in the week, but he didn't have it nearly as bad as Tom and I did!) On Friday night, I was so miserable that I just could not sleep. I woke up when Colden woke up around 2:30, and that was it. I laid there and coughed and tried to blow my nose, but nothing was making me any better. And I felt like I had a fever, too. So, finally, around 4 a.m., I gave in, took my laptop into the living room with the tissues, some juice and a blanket and my pillow and crashed on the couch until Tom had to get up at 5:30 to go fishing.

Thankfully, Colden ate some breakfast the next morning with Tom and Claude, and then crawled back into bed so I could get a little sleep.

Today, the crud seems better, except for the occasional burst of snot in my nose.

Anyway, Tom did give me my Mother's Day/birthday present today, which is the complete Monty Python series on dvd, including the three movies: The Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and the Meaning of Life. I have been a Monty Python freak for years, ever since an ex-boyfriend of mine introduced me to the show. It was the most bizarre, intelligent thing I had ever seen, and I can tell you some of the most inane bits of Python trivia, if you care to ask.

But anyway. This is my second Mother's Day without my mom, and I want to write something about her here.

Mom passed away in July of 2008, just before Colden turned six months old. I spent ten days in Texas with her right before she passed away, and it's a great comfort to me that she at least got to meet Colden, to hold his chubby little hand and foot, watch him kick his legs while he nursed, and laugh at him in the baby sunglasses I bought for him at Target one evening. Even though Mom had been sick for years, I still felt totally unprepared for the moment when I got the call from my sister at 4 in the morning to tell me that Mom was gone.














This is a picture that was taken at my sister's wedding in 1996. My Mom and Dad are the first two on the left. My mom is holding the red crocheted beaded bag that her Aunt Lou made back in the 1930s. Mom sent that bag to me in 2005, and it's one of my most prized family heirlooms. (See? Beads run in my family!)

My mom was an incredibly talented artist. She could draw, which is something I still can't do, and she made her living by designing and editing knit and crochet designs and patterns for various yarn companies and craft magazines while we were growing up. If there's one thing that I truly and honestly can thank my mother for, it was her example of how to earn a living doing something that you love.

The other thing for which I will always be grateful to Mom is that she always supported my sister and I in whatever creative endeavors we had. As a kid, I can remember watercolor painting classes, baton twirling lessons (which I absolutely loved), violin lessons, hours spent with her teaching me how to knit and crochet, and of course, making jewelry. She and Dad always encouraged me to do what I loved, including singing in our church choir, taking piano lessons, and auditioning for all the high school musicals and plays that I wanted to. They never told us "no" when it came to something that fed our creative spirits.

Lately, I've really been missing Mom a lot. I wish she could see what a handsome little man Colden is now. And I wish she could see what I'm doing on the About.com site. I think she'd be a little bit proud of me for that.

So, to all you Moms out there, put your feet up - it's not too late for a glass of wine and a chick flick, or even a cuddle with your family.

And to my Mom: I miss you and love you, wherever you are.

Just in the nick of time!

While perusing my friends' status updates on Facebook, I noticed this update from Kristie Roeder of Artisan Clay about a really cool Bead Soup Party going on, and today is the last day to sign up! So, naturally, because I don't have enough beading things to keep me busy, I signed up.



I wish I'd known about this before now, but I'm glad I got in just in the nick of time!

Time (Mis)Management

Anyone who has kids and works from home (or even anyone who just has kids) will confirm what I am about to say: there should be 40 hours in a day.

My days lately go like this:
Colden wakes up around 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning. (Sometimes after a night of not sleeping, as I have discussed earlier.) I sit up in bed with him for a few minutes and check my email while he has his morning cup of milk, and then I jump in the shower while he watches Baby Einstein. I get us both changed and dressed, then I make breakfast. We eat breakfast and I clean up the dishes and get things out of reach of the dog so that he doesn't finish cleaning the dishes for me while I'm otherwise occupied. (Ha!)

By this time, it's usually about 8:30 or 9:00. So I start answering emails and writing blog posts and checking message boards on About.com to see what's going on. Colden is usually good for an hour or two playing by himself, but then he wants to hang out with me, and watching me bead or work on the computer is just not fun for him.

I give Colden his snack around 11:00 along with a glass of juice or another glass of milk, and then we let Moose outside, go say hi to the chickens, and run around the yard for a bit.

We come back inside around 11:45 and I make lunch. If I'm lucky, we have leftovers that can just be heated up quickly. If I'm not lucky, I try to make the quickest, healthiest meal that Colden will eat, which very often is macaroni and cheese.

After lunch, I clean up the dishes again, and if the dishwasher is full, Colden will start it for me. (He's such a good little helper.) Then we read a story and have a little glass of milk, and Colden will take a nap. Sometimes he won't nap right after lunch, though, or if it's a Thursday, we go to Lake Placid for tumbling class.

And of course, there are Friday morning play groups, and trips to the vet to get Moose's blood work monitored, and all the other things that go along with life. (Like diaper changes, phone calls, illnesses, etc.)

Once or sometimes twice a week, I will have a singing group rehearsal in the late afternoon/early evening, and so I trek up to Plattsburgh. If I have a gig and a rehearsal in the same week, then there are two nights that I go to Plattsburgh.

All of this can add up to an incredibly stressful week (or month) where I feel as though I am constantly trying to get caught up, and my to-do list just keeps getting longer and longer. Sometimes I wonder if I am really just bad at time management, but then I realize, I somehow manage to get an incredible amount of work done while taking care of Colden at the same time. I know other women who have tried to work at home with their toddlers, and they have all given up in favor of going back to work at a "normal" job, although their jobs will cover the cost of child care.

So, because I love my job at About.com and I love designing new beading projects and teaching, I am giving up the singing group at the beginning of May so I can focus on the work that is bringing in money and so that I can have a little more time to spend with Tom and Colden.

Oh, and I forgot to mention - somehow, in between everything else, I am now trying to make it to the fitness center two or three times a week to get some serious exercise. I'm tired of being the fattest mommy at play group!

Beading Therapy

So, after my little breakdown the other day, I picked up this pattern by Carol Dean Sharpe and started stitching. It was incredibly therapeutic. Made me feel like I was accomplishing something, even if nothing else was working!

I decided to use these transparent gold lustered Delicas for the main color. I've had them in my stash for years, and they were absolutely perfect paired with the dusty rose lined and cream opaque beads. It worked up much faster than I thought it would - now all I need to do is figure out what kind of a clasp I want on it. I might get some of those cool basket-weave ends from Designer's Findings and use a magnet clasp. Or I might make my own toggle.

Ohhhh, so I went to bed last night feeling sort of like I was running a fever. Achy, warm, and just not at all well. Colden woke up around midnight and then again around 5, but he spent part of the night with his little toddler foot right in the middle of my back. When I woke up this morning, I was still feeling warm and achy and queasy to boot. Tom's mom, who turns 70 today!, offered to take Colden for the day, so I have spent most of this day in bed, nursing cold drinks and taking Motrin to keep the fever down.

So, while I spent the day in bed with Moose, I designed three or four new patterns that I'll publish on About.com later tonight or tomorrow, and two of them I plan on making up and writing complete directions on how to make the projects.

And maybe tomorrow I'll tackle that perpetual pile of clothing next to the bed that Colden so enjoys climbing. He reminds me of a little miniature mountaineer when he does that. Can't be good.

Having a beading breakdown.

Nothing that I have been trying to do today has come out right. I spent most of the day working on a tutorial for African Helix, but when I slid the beadwork off the stick, even though it was beaded in the right direction and looked perfect on the stick, the panels popped, not the piping! So frustrating. That's the third time I've tried it in two days, and I am at the end of my rope. (No pun intended.)

So I thought I'd take a break and work on the bead embroidered bracelet tutorial that I've been writing for the last week. I went into Stealth Mommy Mode, snuck into Colden's room while he was taking his nap, and carefully removed a bag of smallish cabochons from the cabinet without waking him up. I pulled out the E6000 and a toothpick, and....glued the cabs on the wrong side of the Stiff Stuff.

So at that point, I was ready to throw myself out the dining room window and down into the newly landscaped herb garden where Tom was working. Instead, I decided to work on a peyote stitched cuff bracelet designed by Carol Dean Sharpe called "Dissections". I got it as part of a trade we did back at the beginning of March, and it and the beads have been sitting on my work pad for a month now. I figured, I can't go wrong with good old two-drop peyote, can I?

I'm pleased to report that I've completed the first 1 1/2" of the cuff and that I love the design. I'll have to post a pic later tonight. The colors I chose - a creamy AB, a metallic raspberry and a lined dusty rose - look as if they might smell as good as my favorite rose and sandlewood bubble bath.

And a bubble bath sure as heck sounds good right about now...

Sleep Deprivation and Mommyhood

Everyone told us when I was pregnant that once Colden hit four or five months old, he would start to sleep through the night and we would be back to getting six or maybe eight hours of sleep a night. Great, right? So we used that thought to comfort ourselves through the first four months of being parents, when Colden needed to eat every two hours, and we found ourselves sleeping whenever we had fifteen minutes to spare.

When he was about five months old, he did start to sleep longer, and at first, like any new mom, I would find myself waking up at two hour intervals anyway, and creeping into his room to check on him and make sure that everything was okay. (Which it always was.)

And then my mom got sick and went into the hospital down in Galveston, and Colden and I went down there to see her, because we weren't sure if we were going to get to see her again. I stayed with my sister, and my sister found a pack-n-play for Colden to sleep in while I got the air mattress on the floor of their spare room.

Colden did not like that pack-n-play. The first night that I put him in it, he just screamed and screamed. Not wanting to wake up the entire house, and desperate for some rest after a twelve hour trip from upstate New York, I put him in bed with me and let him sleep there. For the remainder of my trip to Texas, which was the last time I saw my mom, every night I would tuck Colden into bed next to me to comfort both of us.

The day after I got back to New York, my mom passed away, and Colden did not want to go back to sleeping in his crib. Again, mostly as comfort for me, I would just tuck him into bed next to me and Tom at night and let him sleep there.

Because he was sleeping right there with us, he got used to being able to nurse all night, on demand. And I, desperate for sleep, would very often just let him nurse as I went back to sleep, thinking that it would make all of us happier people.

Eventually, it started to wear on me, being constantly on call for Colden 24/7. When we tried to get him back into his crib, it was horrible for everyone. He would scream until he made himself throw up, which wasn't fun for him, and certainly didn't let Tom and I get any sleep, anyway. I just couldn't bring myself to let him scream it out every single night because I just felt like that was cruel, but he wouldn't sleep longer than an hour at a time at night in bed with us, anyway.


Finally, in January of this year, right before his second birthday, I set up the Big Boy Bed in his room, made up with all sorts of his favorite comfy blankets, his stuffed animals, and a warm pillow. At first, he resisted it, but then once we instituted a new bedtime routine, he started to fall asleep on his own, in his own bed, clutching his Eeyore or his Po or his birdie.

It wasn't perfect, though, and we still have yet to get through two nights in a row where Colden does not wake up calling for "Ma-ma" and wanting a cup or bottle of milk. Some nights, I am just too exhausted to put him back to bed and we let him get back into bed with us. And then lately there have been nights where he will kick me and Tom, pull my hair, and generally thrash about, making all of us miserable and sleep-deprived the next day.

It's getting so hard to function during the day when I only get three or four hours of sleep at night. We put Colden to bed at eight, usually, but then I try to stay up for a couple of hours and finish up whatever work I didn't get done during the day. Bu the time I'm ready to go to bed at ten, Colden is usually awake and crying for me, so I have to put off going to bed until I can get him back to sleep, usually in our bed, which means that once again, Mommy gets about six inches of bed and four inches of covers in which to make herself comfortable. And when you add a 90-lb Moose into the mix, well, I get even less space to sleep.

I know I'm not the only one with a toddler with sleep issues, but it's really starting to wear on me. If Tom goes to Colden, Colden just screams his head off, this high, shrieking primal scream, and Tom can't do a thing with him. If Tom tries to change his diaper, he kicks and rolls and frustrates the hell out of Tom. If Tom tries to do bedtime routine with him, he can get as far as turning off the light, but then Colden won't get into bed and just cries for Ma-ma until I pick him up and rock him in the rocking chair for a few minutes before tucking him into bed.

The last few days, Tom said something to me about the circles under my eyes getting worse, and truthfully, I hadn't looked into a mirror in over a week, so I had no idea. As I was getting into my shower this morning, I looked, and I didn't like what I saw. The circles ARE getting worse. I look as if I've got two black eyes, and lately, I'm so tired that when Colden wakes up in the middle of the night, I get angry and swear a lot because all I want is to just go to sleep.

The other day, I was so tired that I took a three hour nap alongside Colden after we had our lunch. I regretted this later when I realized that after I got up, did the dishes and straightened up the house, cooked dinner, did the dishes again and got Colden into bed that I had a huge pile of work and emails waiting to be finished. That's the trade-off: I can take a nap during the day if I can stay up late at night and finish my work, but then the problem becomes what happens at night when Colden wakes up and then I can't get any more sleep. At the risk of using a cliche, it really does become a vicious cycle, and it ends up with me getting no sleep and getting stressed out about losing my job because I can't keep up with the work.

I would love to hire some help, just someone to come in to the house two or three mornings a week to be a mother's helper and amuse Colden while I got my work done, but when I'm making $675 a month and trying to pay off medical bills from two years ago still, who can afford it? Daycare is absolutely out of the question because we certainly can't afford THAT, and the nearest licensed daycare is either in Lake Placid or twenty minutes in the other direction up in Clintonville.

And then this last week, something has changed in Colden's bedtime routine with him, and I can't figure out what it is yet. Last Sunday night, Colden would not go back to sleep, no matter what I did, unless I stood up with him and carried him throughout the house. I thought I might lie down on the couch with him sprawled out onto me, but the second I sat down on the couch, he woke right up and started screaming again. Finally, around 2:30 a.m., Tom intervened and got Colden a bottle of milk and a snack of cheese, dried cranberries and Goldfish crackers. He sat him up in our bed and put on Baby Einstein, and Colden sat there and giggled at the television and ate the entire bowl of snacks. I was in tears by that point, and I just desperately wanted to be able to close my eyes and go to sleep without a little foot kicking me in the back or little hands pulling at my hair. (Colden has this weird comfort thing about my hair, and yanking on it and rubbing it between his fingers is apparently a source of great comfort to him.)

Last night we had another one of those nights where Colden would not go back to sleep. He went to bed a little before eight, and Tom and I tried to snuggle up a bit and re-connect with each other, but I was so tired the second my head hit the pillow that I just fell asleep. Colden came into our room around eleven and was awake until at least two. We changed his diaper, we got him three bottles of milk, but he wouldn't go to sleep until we put on Baby Einstein and Tom got him another snack of Goldfish crackers and dried fruit.

Sometimes when I do have the opportunity to go to bed early, I lie there awake, because it feels like my brain is telling my body, "Don't even think about going to sleep - you'll just have to get up in an hour!" And that is extremely frustrating because I want to sleep, I need to sleep, but I just can't do it. Sometimes I will take a warm bath and I can feel myself falling asleep in the tub, and then I get out, ready to lie down and sleep, and of course, that's right when Colden wakes up and we have to start all over.

I know I'm not the only person on the planet who has a toddler with sleep issues. We feel as though we've tried everything: we have read The No-Cry Sleep Solution over and over, we have kept charts and logs about Colden's sleep or the lack thereof, and we've tried everything we can think of to create a soothing, predictable and relaxing bedtime routine for him. But the kid just cannot fall back asleep by himself. I'm thinking that this may be the time when I consult with the pediatrician, even though the last time I talked to her about it, she advised me to let him cry it out, and I am definitely NOT comfortable with the thought of causing my kid distress like that.

Last week, I had to go to a singing group rehearsal on a Wednesday morning, and I seriously had no energy and could feel my eyes closing as we sat and tried to come up with a repertoire for our upcoming gigs. I just have no energy left for anything anymore outside of work and Colden.

This morning, Tom went off to do maple sugaring for our friend in Paul Smiths for the day, and we won't be back until late tonight, if we're lucky. I just have to see how I can best get through this day - it's going to be hard. I find myself stressing out again over the pile of work that I have waiting for me this week, and I'm finding it hard to control my temper after having about three hours of sleep last night. I don't know if I will let myself take a nap when/if Colden naps this afternoon, or if I'll keep myself awake and see if I can get some sleep after Tom gets home.

Either way, there's things that gotta get done...

My Health Care Rant (For Those of You Brave Enough to Read It)

So, this whole thing with the health care debate and this health care "overhaul" really has me angry. Really angry. Angry to the point where I can barely think of anything else, so I am going to let it all out here for the world to see. And if you get a little angry after reading this, well, good, because I think this is something we should be angry about.

I've heard over and over from people who are against health care reform that they do not want to be told by the government what they can and can't do. These are mostly the SAME PEOPLE who have no problem with the government telling other people what they can and can't do, though. Legal abortions, anyone? Why is it okay for the government to outlaw abortions but not okay to tell people, "We need to help others with health care." Oh, right, it's a religious and moral thing. Well, how moral is it to let hundreds of thousands of people get sick and die every year because we aren't willing to pay a few bucks more out of our own pockets every month? Is that okay with God? Worry all you want about the unborn, but screw the folks who are here, and living, and trying to make ends meet day after day with their families.

For those same people who don't want to pay into a system that they will never use, here's what I have to say. Do you have some crystal ball that lets you see into the future? Are you so positive that you will never be in dire need of health care? What if you lost your job and had a catastrophic illness while uninsured? I'll bet you would be pleased as punch to have someone else to help take care of the health care bills while you could focus on recovering and getting back to being a productive member of society. Unless, of course, you have a small personal fortune set aside for unexpected health care costs, and then, hey, all the best to ya.

What about your tax dollars that go to roads, bridges, and schools that you will never use or even see in far flung states? What about tax dollars that are spent overseas on American interests? THOSE tax dollars are okay, but tax dollars spent on providing health care to middle class Americans is just awful.

If you don't want the government to tell you what to do, fine. Let's keep importing those toxic toys from China and those contaminated vegetables from South America. The government even tells you how fast you can drive. Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket?

What about prescription drugs? Is it okay for a company to just start selling a drug in this country without any say by the U.S. government?

Oh, wait, you say it's okay for the government to tell you what you can and can't buy and how fast you can drive? Why is health care any different?

The bottom line is that, whether you like it or not, if you live in this country, the United States government tells you what you can and can't do in a million small ways every single day. And now they are trying to say, hey, if you pay us a few extra bucks every month, we can make sure that you will not lose everything that you have worked for your entire life because of one catastrophic illness.

The thing that bothers me the most is people who say, "Well, I've got good health insurance, why should I pay for someone else?" to which I say, first of all, you ALREADY pay for "someone else" through your Medicaid and Medicare taxes. With any luck, you will never become so desperately poor that you need Medicaid. So why should you pay for people on public assistance to have health care? Because there's nothing you can do about it?

Why do we have this mentality when it comes to health care that, "I have mine, screw everyone else?" Are these people who need health care bad people? Do they deserve to be sick? Do they deserve to lose their homes, their cars, and their personal belongings because of bad luck? Why are we so afraid to help people who truly need it?

Now, I have to admit, I'm not happy about this new health care "overhaul". I don't like the idea of the insurance companies still being in charge. I don't like the idea of the government simply requiring everyone to buy health insurance from a private companies.

Which brings me to those stupid "death panels" that were so talked about. Okay, if the government sets up a public option for health care, then the big, bad government will decide who gets treatment and who doesn't. What people don't realize is that the insurance companies already decide who will get treatment and who doesn't.

Has your insurance company ever decided to not pay for a procedure, test or treatment that your doctor recommended?

Mine has.

Have you ever been told that the insurance company won't accept your application because of a pre-existing condition?

I have.

If you want to talk about "death panels", how about those bureaucrats at the private insurance companies who decide that you can't have your next round of chemotherapy or another dialysis treatment? These guys AREN'T EVEN DOCTORS. They don't have medical training. They are MBAs. Do you want some guy from Harvard Business School deciding what medical treatments are best for your cancer? You don't? Oh, well, then, I hope you have about a million dollars socked away to pay for it yourself.

I think the main point I want to make is that in this country, we have this horrible attitude of "It's not my problem." When, exactly, does it become your problem? When YOU lose your job, your health care, your house, and your belongings? By then, it's too late.

I am no fan of Washington politics, but I do give my elected representatives kudos for doing this the best way they could at this point in time. I would really like to see a public option offered. Read that carefully. Public OPTION. Not "REQUIREMENT". A public option would mean that if you needed it, yeah, it would be there for you, and if you didn't need it, someone else who did need it would be able to use it. Why is that so bad?

Just how much do people think this is going to cost them? Are we talking thousands of dollars a month? Some people already pay that just for their health "insurance". Think about it: what is a safety net for your health and your well being like that worth to you? Ten dollars a month? Twenty? A hundred? A thousand? What is it worth to someone else? Personally speaking, I would gladly pay an extra twenty dollars a month right now to ensure that my family and I never had to go without health care.

I'm not saying that socialized medicine is perfect. It certainly isn't. But why, in the most prosperous nation in the WORLD, do people avoid going to the doctor until they deem it worth the cost of a co-pay? What is wrong with the current health care system that people still die from pneumonia because they can't afford to see a doctor?

So, there. Those are my feelings about this whole health care debacle. I think it's about time we did something in this country, the most prosperous country in the WORLD, to make sure that no more of our children die because their parents can't afford to see the doctor. It's time to make sure that the insurance companies stop running the show and let the doctors decide which treatments are best for serious illnesses. It's time to make sure that not one more person or family loses their house, their life savings and their personal belongings because they had the bad luck to get sick. It's about time.

I'm live!

I am live on About.com! Yippee! I got the confirmation email on Friday while I was at the Elizabethtown farmers market that my site has gone live. Wow! Now all I have to do is keep it going. Not hard, right? If you are interested in receiving it, just go to the About.Com Beadwork site and enter your email address. The newsletter will be sent automatically every Monday. That's all you have to do!

I know it's not even nine a.m. right now, but I've already edited and sent out my first newsletter for About.com, logged in to the forums and made a few posts, paid the phone bill, ordered my supplies and materials for kits for the Syracuse Gem & Mineral Show, ordered a few pendants from Beadin' Path for the Soft Flex Flex Your Creativity contest, ordered new light bulbs for my photo lights, and managed to stitch a few beads on my piece for Scarlett Lanson's Use the Muse II contest. So now I've got to pack up Colden and head up to Plattsburgh to do some grocery shopping (we are in dire need of dried cranberries and Cheerios!) before I settle down to do some more serious work this afternoon.

As July 11 draws closer, I am getting more and more nervous about the Syracuse Show. I'm so excited to be teaching there, and I think it's going to be a great time, but I am also worried about my sales. I seem to have lost my sales mojo at my farmers markets this year, although I'm hearing that from everyone at the markets. I'm hoping that I do well in sales at the Syracuse Show, not just because I need to pay the bills, but also because I still see sales as confirmation that my work is good. There's this little part of my brain that says, "If it won't sell, then it must be junk." Even though I know that that is not true. It always feels like personal rejection when I have low sales. It's like the customer isn't just rejecting my work, they're rejecting ME. At least I'm not the only one to feel like that - I've read alot on the Beading Daily Forums about other bead artists who feel the same way!

BUT, on a more positive note, even though we are coming up on the Fourth of July weekend, I have a new project to post on my blog, with a tutorial! (As soon as I figure out how to post a document on the blog, LOL!) It is for my necklace called "Lucia", and it was created entirely with beads that were supplied to me courtesy of Auntie's Beads.

I'm pretty happy with the way it came out, considering that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when I started it!



So, stay tuned for the directions as a downloadable file.

Oh, my. I think Colden just dumped an entire can of breadcrumbs into Moose's water dish. So I think I had best be signing off for now!

Going Live!

Kind of ironic, the term, going live... But that's what I'll be in just a few days on About.com!

Getting ready to go live was sort of like an out-of-body experience for me. Learning how to write for the Web was a very eye-opening experience. I would spend hours in front of the computer, editing photos, and then uploading photos and text in a variety of different styles on a huge server.

Yesterday was crunch day. I had to "publish" the bulk of my work so that the training editor could turn my site over to the tech support people. I spent, literally, four or five hours in front of the computer, completely absorbed in sending information into cyberspace. And after I finished up, it felt a little weird to come back into the "real" world.

It wasn't like becoming completely absorbed in a piece of beadwork. Even when I lose myself in the little piles of sparkly things on my work table, I'm still vaguely conscious of my surroundings, and will very often converse with whoever is around - even on the phone. But writing and editing photos, for some reason, causes me to shut myself off so I can really concentrate. I will usually plug my earphones into the computer so I can listen to my iTunes while I work, and the outside world just...disappears!

At any rate, I will be sure to let everyone know when the site goes live! There are going to be lots of great tutorials on there, and lots of my original designs for my fellow beaders to create.

I am really excited about this new opportunity. I love the idea that I can take what I know and put it out there for other interested beaders to use. I have always loved teaching and sharing knowledge, and I think that that is extremely important among artists. I don't believe in keeping secrets when it comes to art and craft. So now I get to reach out to thousands of people who all love beads as much as I do!

Syrcause Gem & Mineral Show

As I might have mentioned before (maybe once or twice!) I'll be teaching on Sunday, July 12 at the Syracuse Gem & Mineral Show in Syracuse, N.Y. I'll be teaching a 3-hour class on how to bezel a gemstone cabochon with peyote stitch, and I'm very excited! It should be a great show all around - I've never attended this particular show before, but I've heard that it is very family-friendly with lots of activities for the kids. If I'm still teaching there in a few years, when Colden is a little older, it would be great to bring him for the weekend.

So, if you are going to be in the Syracuse area during the weekend of July 11 and 12, contact the Syracuse Gem & Mineral Society for more information and registration. I believe that the cost of the class is going to be pretty reasonable - around $30 for the class. I will have two types of kits available for the class - one that includes everything needed to make the projects, including a gemstone cabochon, a matching strand of 4mm gemstone beads, Delica beads, seed beads, Stiff Stuff, ultrasuede, thread, needles, a clasp and stringing materials for $45; and another kit that includes just the Stiff Stuff, ultrasuede, thread and needles for $15. I will also have a great selection of my other kits available for purchase at the show. And my good friend Jen will be assisting me at my booth while I teach and do some demonstrations during the show. (Yes, her name is Jen, and no, I'm not developing a split personality, although some days I do need to be in three places at once!)

This past Sunday I did my first farmers' market at Marcy Field in Keene, N.Y. There was a Kite Festival as well that day, sponsored by the East Branch Friends of the Arts, a local non-profit arts group from Keene Valley. It was pretty crazy - when I arrived at 8:30 in the morning, it was raining pretty hard. I thought, how are they going to fly kites in this kind of weather?
But they did fly kites! The weather finally started to clear up around 2:30, after I was all packed and starting to head home.

This week, I will be doing three farmers markets in the area - I'll be at the Willsboro Farmers Market on Thursday the 25th of June from 9 am until 1 pm. This is a new market for the Adirondack Farmers Market Cooperative, and it is held at the little grassy parking area across from the Old Adirondack Factory.

Then I'll be at my regular markets in Elizabethtown on Friday the 26th from 9 am until 1 pm and at Marcy Field in Keene on Route 73 from 9:30 am until 2 pm.

And during the week, I'll be getting more inventory ready for the Syracuse Gem & Mineral Show as well as continuing to work for About.com! (The About.com site isn't live yet, but it should be before July 1!)

Right, so, when do I get to sleep?